o start, when he slipped a thin, flat gold watch from his vest
pocket, and asked speculatively:

"Norma, has your Aunt Kate ever seen you in that rig?"

"No!" she answered, quickly. And then, with less sparkle, "No."

"Well, would you like to run in on her a moment?--she'd probably like it
tremendously!" said Chris.

"Oh, Chris--I would love it!" Norma exclaimed, soberly, over a disloyal
conviction that she would rather not. "But have we time?"

"Tons of time. Annie's dinners are a joke!"

Norma glanced at the women; Mrs. Melrose looked undecided, but Alice
said encouragingly:

"I think that would be a sweet thing to do!"

So it was decided: and Norma was bundled up immediately, and called out
excitedly laughing good-byes as Chris hurried her to the car.

"You know, it means a lot to your own people, really to see you this
way, instead of always reading about it, or hearing about it!" Chris
said, in his entirely prosaic, big-brotherly tone, as the car glided
smoothly toward the West Sixties.

"I know it!" Norma agreed. "But I don't know how you do!" she added, in
shy gratitude.

"Well, I'm nearly twice your age, for one thing," he replied,
pleasantly. And as the car stopped unhesitatingly at the familiar door
he added: "Now make this very snappy!"

She protested against his getting out, but he accompanied her all the
way upstairs, both laughing like conspirators as they passed somewhat
astonished residents of the apartment house on the way.

Aunt Kate and Wolf, and Rose and Harry, as good fortune would have it,
were all gathered under the dining-room lamp, and there was a burst of
laughter and welcome for Norma and "Mister Chris." Norma's wrap was
tossed aside, and she revolved in all her glory, waving her fan at arm's
length, pleasantly conscious of Wolf's utter stupefaction, and
conscious, too, a little less pleasantly, that Aunt Kate's maternal eye
did not agree with Aunt Annie's in the matter of _decolletage_.

Then she and Chris were on their way again, and the legitimate delights
of being young and correctly dressed and dining with the great Mrs. von
Behrens, and going to Grand Opera at the Metropolitan, might begin.
Norma had perhaps never in her life been in such wild spirits as she was
to-night. It was not happiness, exactly, not the happiness of a serene
spirit and a quiet mind, for she was too nervous and too much excited to
be really happy. But it was all wonderful.

She was the youngest pe